We See What You Did There, Allyn Media

Chart Westcott has taken it in the shorts for the disparate messages presented in his mailers during the House District 108 campaign. But opponent Morgan Meyer’s mailers are not only more consistent, they’re consistent when compared to another candidate’s.

Uptown resident Susan Hawk won the Republican primary for district attorney with the help of Allyn Media, the same company that counts Meyer among its clients. As you can see here, both campaigns are using the same design template.

The color scheme is similar, of course. Only Don “Orange you glad I’m not John Carona” Huffines strayed from the good old red, white, and blue. But the fonts and logos also seem to echo each other, as do the photographs of the candidates hard at work on something requiring penmanship.

I wonder how much Allyn Media is billing each candidate for these. More examples after the jump.

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Can’t wait for the campaigning to end. It’s overkill especially the barrage of mailers arriving in the mailbox every week.

Question

Does Allyn Media use recycled paper? Wonder how many of the mailers got recycled vs straight thrown in the trash.

On another note – has a mailer ever persuaded someone to vote for candidate over another? Seems to me if you rely on a mailer for your decision, you shouldn’t vote in the first place.

allison

@Question I threw every single one (all 4,052) straight in the recycling bin without even reading them. I have no doubt that is the same for 99% of the receivers.

That said, I have another question. How much does simple name familiarity matter in elections? I know when I’ve voted sometimes there have been races where I didn’t know anything about either side, much less some names. I do honestly wonder how many people vote for a recognizable name in an election that’s tacked on to the larger ones (like President or governor).

If there’s a decent amount of people that vote for a recognizable name in an election they know nothing about (or frankly care about, let’s be real), then maybe postcards serve a purpose.

But not 4,052 postcards. This election has been overkill to say the least.

Avid Reader

While voting the only other voter in the place said/asked the following:
“I came to vote for candidates in three of the races, have no idea who anyone else is on the ballot. If I don’t vote for someone in these other races I know nothing about, does my ballot still get counted or is it rejected by the machine or something?”

The fellow sitting at the registration table said the following:
“If you don’t vote for someone in each of the races, the system will reject your entire ballot and none of your votes will count.”

Is that true?

http://www.parkcitiespeople.com Dan Koller

Avid Reader, I just had this exchange via Twitter:

@DanKollerPeople: One of my readers was told by a poll worker that ballots that aren’t completely filled out don’t count. Is that true?

@DallasElections: That is not true Every ballot counts!

1st anon

I glance at every one of them as I sort through the daily mail. I look at the candidate’s issues web page. Each nugget of information is internally digested. For me, the more that they talk about their war against Obamacare and their fight against Washington, then points get deducted. Talk about the stuff I care about, points get added. You can lose or win with mailers.

Robocalls are another matter. Fortunately, I’m no longer getting calls from xxx-906-1925 (Don Huffines). If I had voted in the R primary, I would have voted against him, just for his incessant wasting of my time.

Lucinda

@ allison: your comments ring true which is why Washington DC is a mess. An aspiring politician merely needs a plethora of yard signs and mailers with pretty photos of the perfect family to influence voters.

HighTechMomma

When I first saw these two pictures, I thought “aww, how quaint – they’re using pens and paper just like the olden days”. Yes, I still own a pen or two, but it is funny to think about how these ads will look different in 50 years…..like the old ones we see with a quill and ink or maybe a typewriter. Even now, seeing that does make them seem a bit outdated.